The Devil's Pool eBook

Germain would have gone mad, had not his son, who
was looking for him and who entered the cottage galloping
on a stick, with his little sister en croupe,
lashing the imaginary steed with a willow switch, recalled
him to himself. He lifted him up, and said, as
he put him in his fiancee’s arms:

“You have made more than one person happy by
loving me!”

APPENDIX

I

THE COUNTRY WEDDING

Here ends the story of Germain’s courtship,
as he told it to me himself, cunning ploughman that
he is! I ask your pardon, dear reader, for having
been unable to translate it better; for the old-fashioned,
artless language of the peasants of the district that
I sing—­as they used to say—­really
has to be translated. Those people speak too much
French for us, and the development of the language
since Rabelais and Montaigne has deprived us of much
of the old wealth. It is so with all progress,
and we must make up our minds to it. But it is
pleasant still to hear those picturesque idioms in
general use on the old soil of the centre of France;
especially as they are the genuine expressions of the
mockingly tranquil and pleasantly loquacious character
of the people who use them. Touraine has preserved
a considerable number of precious patriarchal locutions.
But Touraine has progressed rapidly in civilization
during and since the Renaissance. It is covered
with chateaux, roads, activity, and foreigners.
Berry has remained stationary, and I think that, next
to Bretagne and some provinces in the extreme south
of France, it is the most conservative province
to be found at the present moment. Certain customs
are so strange, so curious, that I hope to be able
to entertain you a moment longer, dear reader, if you
will permit me to describe in detail a country wedding,
Germain’s for instance, which I had the pleasure
of attending a few years ago.

For everything passes away, alas! In the short
time that I have lived, there has been more change
in the ideas and customs of my village than there
was for centuries before the Revolution. Half
of the Celtic, pagan, or Middle-Age ceremonials that
I saw in full vigor in my childhood, have already
been done away with. Another year or two, perhaps,
and the railroads will run their levels through our
deep valleys, carrying away, with the swiftness of
lightning, our ancient traditions and our wonderful
legends.

It was in winter, not far from the Carnival, the time
of year when it is considered becoming and proper,
among us, to be married. In the summer, we hardly
have time, and the work on a farm cannot be postponed
three days, to say nothing of the extra days required
for the more or less laborious digestion attending
the moral and physical intoxication that follows such
a festivity.—­I was sitting under the huge
mantel-piece of an old-fashioned kitchen fire-place,
when pistol-shots, the howling of dogs, and the shrill
notes of the bagpipe announced the approach of the
fiances. Soon Pere and Mere Maurice, Germain,
and little Marie, followed by Jacques and his wife,
the nearest relations of the bride and groom, and
their godfathers and godmothers, entered the court-yard.